ALBANY (NY)
Times Union
October 13, 2019
By Cayla Harris
Complaint accuses Hubbard, another priest of abusing a young boy in the late ’80s
A lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Albany on Friday is the fourth civil action to accuse former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard of child sex abuse.
The complaint, which does not include specific details, alleges that Hubbard and a second priest — now deceased — abused a child in the late 1980s while the plaintiff served as an altar boy at St. John the Baptist church in Chestertown.
Hubbard, who retired in 2014 after nearly four decades at the helm of the diocese, said in a statement Sunday that he “adamantly” denies any accusations of child sex abuse lodged against him.
Peter Saghir, the plaintiff’s attorney, said the alleged abuse involving Hubbard was a one-time incident that occurred when the boy was roughly nine or 10 years old and visited the home of the second priest, Gerald Kampfer.
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The first claim against Hubbard, filed in August, alleged that the former bishop abused a teenage boy in the 1990s. A second filed the next month accused him and two other Capital Region priests — Francis P. Melfe and Albert DelVecchio, both now deceased — of repeatedly assaulting a teenage girl in the late 1970s at a now-shuttered church in Schenectady.
A third filed earlier this month claimed that Hubbard and a second priest abused a teenage boy at a Troy church in the 1970s. The second priest is identified in the complaint as “Joseph Mato,” but the Times Union could not confirm if a priest by that name served at the church. A deceased priest with a similar name was employed by the diocese during that time.
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